Details coming on transitional policy for cross-border e-commerce
Details of the transitional phase of policy for cross-border e-commerce will soon be implemented, including an expanded list for imported products ranging from electronics to consumer goods, food and healthcare products, domestic news site Economic Information Daily reported on Monday.
The new list will have more than 1,300 categories of taxable items in cross-border retail, largely covering the most-demanded import products, the media report said.
From January 1, 2019, there will be 22 cities in China that will implement the cross-border e-commerce regulations.
China's top legislators passed an e-commerce law in August. The law promotes cross-border e-commerce and supports the participation of small and micro-sized businesses, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
The new policy will also raise threshold for a single transaction from 2,000 yuan ($288.4) to 5,000 yuan while increasing the annual transaction threshold from 20,000 yuan per person to 26,000 yuan, the news site said.
The policy also specifies that regulations for cross-border e-commerce are different from cargo trade, "which is good news for the industry," said Zhang Li, head of the Institute of E-commerce at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.
For instance, e-commerce traders usually handle small transactions, and some can't meet the requirements of general cargo trade, including the certificates of origin for various products, Zhang noted. As a result, the new policy clarifies that cross-border e-commerce will be regulated as personal goods, which will help boost its growth.
In 2017, China's e-commerce imports grew 75.5 percent year-on-year to 56.6 billion yuan. The percentage of cross-border e-commerce shoppers accounting for e-commerce shoppers increased from 1.6 percent in 2014 to 10.2 percent in 2017.
China will expand and improve existing policies on retail imports via cross-border e-commerce to widen the nation's opening-up and unlock the potential of consumption, a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Wednesday.
The meeting decided that starting from next January, the current policies on cross-border e-commerce retail imports will remain effective.
No requirements for licensing, registration or record-filing for first-time imports shall apply to retail imports handled through cross-border e-commerce platforms.
Instead, these goods will qualify for less stringent regulation as imports for personal use, Xinhua said.
